Belle Knox: The Duke Porn Star’s Identity Revealed

Days after the Duke campus was sent into a frenzy when one student revealed she was also working as a porn star, the girl in question gave up her identity in an emotional, empowering open letter on Mar. 4, and her birth name has also now been unearthed. Do YOU think she was wrong to resort to porn to pay for college, or is her story empowering to women?

Belle Knox is the Duke student/porn star who has caused a sensation on the North Carolina campus — and also the internet. After initially trying to remain anonymous, the 18-year-old revealed her identity in a Mar. 4 letter on xoJane, before her birth name — Miriam Weeks — went public on Mar. 6.

Belle Knox: Duke Porn Star Reveals Her Identity

Belle owned what she deemed a “Scarlet Letter” in her long note, saying that she was revealing her porn star identity because it is hers to reveal and that no one controls her identity but herself. She also explained that she would not reveal her birth name, because she feels she deserves that last shred of privacy:

My birth name is one name. IT IS MINE. It is the name I am enrolled in at Duke. It is what my family and friends call me. My porn name is another name. It is the name I use when I perform. These are two different worlds in which I inhabit. I can’t stop you from calling me any name you want to — including “slut,” “whore” or “bitch” — but I can decide what name I use.

Today, I’m going to officially reveal what my porn name is — outside of the dregs of the Internet trying to bully me into using my birth name for porn, on message boards where comments like “Her nose is bigger than her tits” or “She deserves to be raped” are the common parlance — and that is my choice to make.

The Internet does not dictate my life. My sexuality is not some sort of blackmail to be used against me, granting you ownership over my life or my story. It is my life. It is my story.

So I’m refusing to let the bullies win. Instead, in revealing my performer name, I’m also going to let you know exactly the level of hate that exists in America regarding women who refuse to be quiet about their sexuality.

Obviously in the two days since Belle wrote this letter, her real name — Miriam Weeks — has been discovered and published by outlets such as the New York Daily News, which seemed like an inevitability after the Duke freshman showed the world her face.

Belle Knox Criticizes ‘Double Standard’

In her letter, Belle also challenged what she called a “double standard,” where porn performers are criticized and degraded, but porn viewers are given a free pass:

In my own personal life, I am devastated to reveal that many of those closest to me have unleashed similar cruelty. Many have simply shut me out. Some of my best and oldest friends have told me that I deserve anything negative or horrible that comes my way — and that terrible things are what I have brought upon myself when I decided to do porn.

To this I would ask: What about the people who consume porn?

The adult industry racks up $13.3 billion in the U.S. alone, and do we honestly wish collective evil, shame and condemnation upon every human being involved in this gigantic (and I would add, legitimate) business? Because that is incredibly disturbing to me. I don’t even care if you are condemning me, but look at the thousands of other women who you are condemning as well.

Do you really think you are better than us? Perhaps ask your husband or boyfriend or son or brother (or your wife or girlfriend or daughter or sister) if they have ever watched porn. Do they also deserve bad things and terrifying threats against their safety? No? Then look at the double standard you are employing. Look at the hate you are so comfortable inflicting upon the performers but not on the consumers who drive the industry’s success and profitability.

As a final dagger she added, “You want to see me naked. And then you want to judge me for letting you see me naked.”

Belle claims that what everyone should really be taking away from this story is how cripplingly expensive higher education is, claiming that Duke’s tuition required her to get creative to find a way to pay for it. That’s certainly arguable — we’d guess that many students pay for their own tuition by working jobs that aren’t porn — but on the whole it’s hard not to partly agree with Belle’s emotional letter. Though Belle should have been prepared to get public attention for performing so publicly, she definitely doesn’t deserve death threats.

And even if you don’t agree with what she’s doing, you have to respect the way she’s resolved to dissolve her anonymity and stand up for herself.

What do you think, HollywoodLifers? Is Belle empowering women by railing against her critics and exposing the double standard of pornography, or do you think she’s part of the problem by making adult movies? Let us know.